Outside of the gaggle of shiny faced cretins obsequiously smirking behind the Genius Bar, we love Apple. But do we love them enough to be reassured when they respond to a complaint by leaning back in their chair and sigh “Trust me?” Yeah, uh…. no.

Justin P. has an old Powerbook, which he purchased in 2003 along with a 3-year Applecare Warranty. Apple has no record of this, despite repairing this laptop under the same warranty.

Now Justin’s got another hiccup in his system that needs to be repaired. Unfortunately, as far as Apple’s concerned, he never bought a warranty. He’s only got a few days left before the warranty expires. A CSR has promised him that he’ll “look into it” and get back to Justin. “Trust me,” he soothes.

Justin wants to know if he should trust Apple at their word, or if he needs to escalate the issue. ‘No’ to the former, ‘hell yes!’ to the latter. You just don’t sit waiting by the phone when you’ve only got a day left to get a warranty issue resolved.

Justin’s email, after the jump.

So I bought a G4 Powerbook on September 20th, 2003, and purchashed the 3-year Applecare warranty with it. I made a call into Apple about a year and a half ago with a RAM issue, phone support walked me through it. They clearly had record of my Applecare agreement. I was having the bright white spot issue with my display that seems to have been well known to everyone else (I honestly didn’t look it up, thought I may have done something) and was pointed out to me at the end of last week as being a commonly known and warranty covered problem.

I call up Applecare on Saturday, with 4 days remaining on my coverage, and they tell me they have no record of my ever having purchased Applecare. They have no record of my call a year and a half earlier either. I get my receipt, give them the info off the paperwork, and they come back saying it must have been an internal error that it wasn’t applied. Still no comment on why my previous call didn’t exist in their records, but ok. They tell me it will take 24 hours to be active in their system, call back in a day or two and they’ll set up the return process.

I check the website on Sunday, enter my serial number, it still doesn’t show my computer as being covered. I figured it might just be a weekend thing, so I waited til Monday to try again…still no dice. I call up last night, get a VERY rude guy who tells me that I would only have a few days left on my coverage anyway, do I still want to try to do something about this? I told him yes, especially since it was an Apple mistake that didn’t auto-enroll me when I purchased both at an apple store.

He proceeds to tell me that it will take up to a week to have the Applecare agreement tied to my computer, and that I will have to call back in a week or so (my 3-year Applecare agreement expires at end of day today) to get it taken care of. He says that since a ticket has been opened before the Applecare would have expired I’ll be fine, but that he can’t send me an email or fax verifying that. I just need to “trust him” and call back in a week.

I’ve seen some rough stories about Applecare, and I don’t want to get run around for a few days til the warranty is up and “whoops! sorry for you” gets said to me.

Does this sound legit to you guys? Or do I need to worry/call someone higher up?

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